Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/249

 me difficult to separate vegetable and animal remains from each other. The same mode of explanation ought to comprehend both.

I have permitted myself at the conclusion of the present discussion to connect with facts collected in different and widely separated countries some uncertain and hypothetical conjectures. The philosophical study of Nature rises beyond the requirements of a simple description of Nature: it does not consist in a sterile accumulation of isolated facts. It may sometimes be permitted to the active and curious mind of man to stretch forward from the present to the still obscure future; to divine that which cannot yet be clearly known; and thus to take pleasure in the ancient myths of geology reproduced in our own days in new and varied forms.